Australian Federal Election 2016: the Nationals funding bandwagon rolls on along NSW North Coast

National MPs and candidates on the NSW North Coast are rolling out the funding promises with a vengeance now the old 2013 Debt & Deficit Disaster campaign slogan has been hidden under the bed.

Sitting MP Kevin Hogan in the Page electorate:

$1.8 million for a boardwalk along Maclean's Riverside Precinct

$200,000 on CCTV coverage of Grafton and South Grafton business districts

$5,300 for the purchase and installation of two reverse cycle air conditioners in Casino's Community Men's Shed 

$1 million for rebuilding the Woolgoolga Surf Life-Saving Club

New mobile phone towers at Ramornie, Nammoona, Yorklea and Kyogle

$2 million to replace wooden bridges in Kyogle

$500,000 towards an ampitheatre at Casino

Federal candidate for Richmond Matthew Fraser:

$1 million for a second story on Kingscliff's Salt Surf Life Saving Club

Sitting MP Luke Hartsuyker in The Cowper electorate:

$12,000 for Capacity Building for Sustainable and Biological Farming in the Bellingen/Coffs Harbour region

$45,400 Local Blueberry Industry Market Segmentation Research to improve targeting of behaviour change tools for Best Practice

$12,000 in grants for Coffs Harbour community radio station CHYFM

$27,695 training grant for Macksville business Mid Coast Trucks

$4,700 Reap Coffs Harbour

$4,460 Pregnancy Care Coffs Harbour
$1,619 Coffs and Woolgoolga Mental Health and Wellbeing Support Group
$3,950 Sanctuary Australia Foundation

$2,250 Special Needs Support Group
$4,004The Friends of the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden
$2,500 Swimming North Coast – Coffs Harbour  

$2,800 Boambee East Community Centre

$3,333 South Coffs Community Garden  

Somewhere in all this is Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s $25 million promise to the Northern Rivers and Mid-North Coast - rather vaguely called the Coalition jobs package for NSW North Coast and aimed at new, creative and innovative local businesses in the Page, Cowper and Lyne electorates. 

Of course all these businesses, from Taree and Port Macquarie up to Lismore and Ballina, will be competing with each other for a slice of this relatively small amount of money.

* My apologies to North Coast Nationals MPs and candidates if I omitted any funding pledges which have been made to date, but that's the sort of thing that will sometimes occur when election campaign press releases aren't sent out to social media.